Henry County residents still split on potential data center construction
More than 100 Henry County residents gathered Wednesday night for the last public hearing before the vote on the proposed construction of a data center. As IPR’s Thomas Ouellette reports, public reception is still split on the creation of the facility.
Kiley Blalock has been vocal about her opposition to the data center. She warned about the potential pitfall of investing too much of the county’s money into a market as new and unpredictable as AI data centers.
“Today, major financial players warn that AI evaluations are approaching dot-com era levels and a crash may be near,” she said. “The technology may be new, but the hype is familiar.”
Other community members speaking against the facility’s construction pointed towards the drastic environmental impact that other data centers have had on the areas around them.
The Environmental and Energy Study Institute reports a large data center can go though as much as five million gallons per day.
Shawn Beaty lives in Henry County and is the president of Laborers Local 1112 in Muncie. He spoke in support of the data center, citing the number of jobs its construction would create.
“What I am here to tell you is that 700 jobs for the next 10 years would be remarkable for the New Castle Career Center and all of us in New Castle,” Beaty said. “We get to stay home, we get to recruit and say that we got all of these jobs here.”
Those in favor of the data center reiterated multiple guarantees made by the facility’s developers, including not adding to strain on the county’s power grid and generating significant taxes for local governments.
Additionally, developers Chris King and Greg Martz restated their promises for the data center to be as non-invasive and beneficial to the community as possible if approved. During a Henry County Planning Commission meeting last November, King said the company promised not to drill any on-site water wells and exceed environmental and emission standards.
Henry County Commissioners are scheduled to take the next vote on the project on January 28.
Thomas Ouellette is our reporter and producer. Contact him at thomas.ouellette@bsu.edu
